I think this was such a great historical romance book that had a perspective that I haven't read yet. I have been wanting to expand the setting of stories that I am reading, as well as the types of romances that I read and I think this is a good start of this journey. The two main characters experience similar trials and tribulations across generations and I think that was interesting, but it did make it all a tad predictable. The story also sets up the next book in the series in a way that almost felt forced, so I wish it was a tad more fluid with the rest of the story. ( )

great story, interesting history ( )

After the death of her beloved grandmother, Marisol Ferrera is charged with an important mission: scatter her grandmother's ashes in Cuba, her homeland. As a freelance journalist, Marisol finesses her way into an assignment to write an article about tourist attractions and smuggles her grandmother's ashes into Cuba.

Although Marisol grew up listening to her family's stories about Havana, she is unprepared to confront the familial and political realities of the place. Although welcomed by close friends and distant relations, she feels distinctly like an outsider and she meets a version of her beloved grandmother she never knew. As Marisol continues to uncover ancestral secrets, she is also surprised to discover an inconvenient passion for a mysterious Cuban man.

This book annoyed me. At its heart are two quintessentially privileged and clueless women who inexplicably form a deep emotional attachment to men entirely morally opposed to them. It's more forgivable in the case of Elisa, who is nineteen and has not been raised to be curious or thoughtful. It makes (some) sense that she's never questioned why her family lives in a palace while the rest of their country starves.

But Marisol is a thirty-year-old woman and a journalist. The reader is supposed to believe that she's never questioned her family's troubling past, nor examined the complicated political history of the country she claims as her own. She meets a history professor in Cuba and is confronted by some extremely basic questions that she should have considered long before. Despite falling in love with Luis, she still doesn't really examine or interrogate her own privilege much other than whining that the Cubans don't really see her as one of their own. Which, of course they don't. She's literally never visited before?

Both relationships are not really developed and make no sense. They both function the same, a silly woman meets a serious and passionate man who can then talk at her for pages on end in order to explain parts of Cuba's history. They are in love instantly, although they have nothing in common and don't really agree on much.

The book's "secrets" are obvious and still painfully telegraphed. Moreover, Marisol's relationship with Luis reads disturbingly like a purchase. She admires him immediately for his looks and "old world charm" (deep cringe), but what makes her fall in love with him is his passion for Cuba. She watches him teach a history class and enviously gazes upon him, coveting his "passion" and wishing she had a job that could fill her with such enthusiasm. This woman, born to privileged returns to her home country seeking yet another experience she can acquire for herself - in this instance, an authentic Cuban she can join herself to in order to prove her "realness". And she does. The convenient plot elements assist her, but in the end, she convinces Luis to leave Cuba to save his life and is deeply unconcerned with whether he will be happy in America long term. She's just glad that she "has" him. It all read as very possessive.

Literally, after the plane leaves Cuba, Luis doesn't speak again. Marisol talks about him to other people, but we don't see him again. He has faded into the background, as just a piece of furniture in her life. But she gets to tell her great aunt about her "Cuban lover" that she brought back with her.

I sorta get that the book is supposed to be escapist. The reader is supposed to imagine themselves jetting off to Cuba and having just enough of an adventure to get a thrill before returning to the safe cocoon of America with our new lover. But this book conveys enough of Cuban history for it to be deeply troubling to be another person stripping the island of resources before fleeing. I wanted to know more about the people that were left behind after the protagonists' family left. These are the people whose story this should be.

Also. I cannot close this review with out saying that BOTH protagonists comment, completely unironically, about how their family's staff are "just as much a part of the family as any of us" on multiple occasions. Which made me roll my eyes so hard I passed out. Gross. ( )

This was a book I’ve been meaning to read for several years so was especially excited to find it in a Little Free Library. And I just discovered it is the first of five!

After reading this historical romance based on the 1950s Cuban revolution and its aftermath, a new-to-me time period, I do recommend it, with one caveat. The first 100 pages or so have a lot of Cuban history and politics and can feel like a bit of a slog, but it does pick up after that and is ultimately a romance. For that reason I rate it 3.5, rounded up to a 4.

This dual timeline story features Elisa in 1938 and her granddaughter Marisol in 2017 with both women falling in love with revolutionaries. It was a little predictable, or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. The political unrest was portrayed with danger, secrets, intrigue, sacrifice – who to trust?

Bestselling author Chanel Cleeton was inspired by her own family’s history to create this family saga and love story against the background of Cuba’s political unrest (a sanitized term to describe the cruel dictatorship, guerrilla rebellion, revolutionaries, and political exiles). This is ultimately a memorable story of struggles, courage, and hope. ( )

This is one of those books that is written so vividly it's easy to fall right into. I loved every description and the care with which Cuba's difficult and complicated history was written - it made me want to learn more and to question what I thought I knew. The love stories - while a bit idyllic were heart wrenching, and even though there was some slight suspension of reality (I don't know anyone who would fall in love with someone in less than two days in a foreign country), I somehow didn't mind it.

( )